A Vibrant Seattle Through Transportation Excellence.

People in several Seattle neighborhoods including Rainier Valley and Bitter Lake now have new road surfaces, thanks to the City’s 2017 Microsurfacing Program. Microsurfacing is a cost-effective way to extend the life of pavement by sealing minor cracks and other problems by applying a thin protective coating on roads – it’s just like painting your house to protect it!

This year, SDOT crews spent 10 days in August working on streets around future Neighborhood Greenways in Rainier Valley and in North Seattle, as well as in Bitter Lake, Wedgwood, and Ravenna-Bryant neighborhoods.

It’s that time again! Summer is ending, school’s about to start and back-to-school activities are well underway here at SDOT. Yep, you read that right! SDOT and back-to-school go hand-in-hand, because we’re all about Safe Routes to School. This is why we kicked off Operation TREE-IAGE, you know like, ‘triage’? You can thank Director Scott Kubly for that clever little number.

Please checkout our short Blog Video that has useful information:

So far SDOT crews have trimmed and cleared:

348 signs/signals

671 sidewalk locations

1054 trees

We’ve targeted overgrown vegetation and trees around Seattle’s 59 public elementary schools. Crews are clearing sidewalks and walkways of overgrowth so kids have a clear and safe path to walk to class. Our Urban Forestry team is also pruning trees and bushes covering school zone signs, beacons, and signals so drivers have clear visibility and can adjust speeds accordingly.

This project ends Sept 1, is another way to get closer to Seattle’s Vision Zero goal and improve safety for our youngest travelers. Remember, the speed limit on all residential streets is 20 MPH (just like the school zone speed limit!).

We’ve also teamed up with Seattle Department of Construction and Inspection to educate residents of tree trimming and vegetation maintenance requirements in the right-of-way, and encourage them to share this information with neighbors and help out neighbors who might need assistance.

Microsurfacing will soon bring “new” life to roads in several Seattle neighborhoods!

Microsurfacing is a protective seal coat which extends the life of pavement. This is a cost-effective method to renew the road surface and seal minor cracks and other irregularities. Like painting a house, microsurfacing creates a protective layer which preserves the underlying structure and minimizes the need for more expensive repairs in the future.

Starting on August 14, crews working for the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) will carry out the City’s 2017 Microsurfacing Program in several parts of town. The project will improve the surface of streets on the future Rainier and North Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, and in areas of Bitter Lake, Wedgwood and Ravenna-Bryant.

Click on a neighborhood link below for street maps of work areas and dates:

Microsurfacing seals minor cracks with a coating that’s only about one-quarter inch thick. It protects the pavement and extends the life of neighborhood streets. This helps the city avoid larger and more expensive repairs later.

Microsurfacing is considered a cost-effective way to restore a road surface and extend the life of the street by 7 to 10 years. This year’s program is funded through the city’s Real Estate Excise Tax (REET).

People who live or work in the work zones should have received a letter about what to do to prepare for the project, such as moving your vehicles off the street. To learn more about microsurfacing, and to see maps of all the specific streets being resurfaced this summer, please check out www.seattle.gov/transportation/Microsurfacing.htm.

Our crews are just about done installing a new public art project, led by the community, for the Little Saigon neighborhood at 12th Ave S and S Jackson St, as part of our Community Crosswalks program.

According to the artist, the crosswalk represents the tale of how Vietnam was founded.

The crosswalk design has three main components: the turtle, lotus plant, and water. Each of these objects play a role in illustrating the Vietnamese American experience and culture. The turtle has been present for centuries in Vietnamese mythology and is strongly associated with luck, longevity, and perseverance. The lotus symbolizes beauty and strength in the face of adversity. The blue water gradient is a nod to the ocean that borders Vietnam and depicts a sense of adaptability, a quality that Vietnamese immigrants and refugees had to embrace in order to rebuild their lives in new countries and cultures.*

The Little Saigon community has been working on a design for these decorative crosswalks for the past year, with two goals in mind:

To contribute a cultural marker for the Vietnamese American community in Little Saigon

Transit is the backbone of Seattle’s transportation system – more than 60% of those who work downtown commute by bus or train! Transit saves money, reduces pollution, and moves a lot of people, so keeping those trains and buses moving is vital.

There are many street repair needs throughout Seattle, so we prioritize our paving and repair work to get the most bang for the public’s buck. Since buses serve so many people, we give a high priority to making street repairs on bus routes, all other things being equal.

Before: damaged pavement at a bus stop along a busy bus route in West Seattle.

A recent repair on Delridge Way SW and SW Juneau St is just one example of SDOT’s street repairs that help to improve transit. Crews replaced several concrete panels that were damaged from the weight of heavy vehicles like trucks and buses at this bus stop.

Crews cutting and excavating the damaged panels.

We replaced old, damaged panels with thicker ones that can better withstand today’s bus traffic and heavier vehicles. It’s no surprise that SDOT received many requests to replace the damaged panels here.

After: new panels for a smooth bus ride home.

The new, smooth panels eliminate the delays that came with the older, broken pavement and help increase the reliability of the popular #120 Metro Transit route that runs on this street. Since buses usually run on arterials, making repairs on bus routes such as this location improve trips for people whether they are riding a bike, carpooling or driving a car on this busy street.

This Mother’s Day weekend, we pause to appreciate the maternal people in our lives for all the things they’ve taught us, and do for us. What better time to appreciate the many things that SDOT’s flower-filled roadside landscapes do for us throughout the year?

We all enjoy the beauty of the spring daffodils and other flowers as we cruise along our streets. But flowers are more than just a pretty face – they serve crucial functions in an urban environment.

Flowers and well maintained streets help make a city more walkable and bikable, which in turn make it more attractive. More people on our streets make Seattle safer and reduce crime.

Also, flowers are a critical piece of the urban ecosystem because they support pollinators, the creatures such as bees, butterflies and hummingbirds which pollinate plants so they can reproduce. The decline of pollinators is a worldwide crisis, and SDOT is paying attention to what steps it can take to help address this problem.

Two years ago, Seattle became one of the first cities to join the Bee City USA network by increasing habitat for pollinators on City property and encouraging residents to plant more flowers on their property.

Now, when we plant flowers in our street medians, curb bulbs, traffic circles and other locations, SDOT considers which flowers will better support pollinators. A diverse mix of species which blooms from spring through fall provides more variety for different types of pollinators.

Not only are wildflowers beautiful, but they need less maintenance than formal flower beds.

I bet your mother could have taught you that.

To learn more about how SDOT gardeners and irrigation specialists take care of all types of plants at over 200 locations along our 4,000 miles of roadways, check out this previous post.

The City wrapped up week 2 of Pothole Palooza – our program with a laser focus to fill potholes all across the City.

Spring is high season for Seattle potholes. Winter rain seeps into the cracks in pavement, where it freezes, expands, and damages our streets. Drive lots of cars, buses and trucks over that compromised pavement, and potholes appear like dandelions in the spring.

On a typical day, SDOT has 20 to 35 staff filling potholes, but for Pothole Palooza we redeployed 50 additional staff from various groups in the City to provide an all-out response to those potholes. SDOT’s pothole rangers were joined by our asphalt paving crews, staff from our Street Use Division, personnel from our Safety Group, as well as crews from the Parks Department.

Crews workin’ hard to fill those potholes

This allowed us to double the usual number of teams responding to pothole requests all across the City each day. Plus, we created six teams to proactively fill potholes on arterials in every council district. All of these proactive teams were focused on each council district for at least a full day, so every section of the City received a full-on pothole response.

We thank our Pothole Palooza team for their flexibility, teamwork and ability to reprioritize their traditional workload for this vital effort. Working together, they filled an estimated 8,700 potholes in the last two weeks! We hope you can see the difference on our streets.

No surprise, we had a drastic jump in the number of requests to fill potholes during this event. Thanks to everyone who contacted us with locations of potholes – your “crowdsourcing” helped SDOT plan where to deploy our Palooza teams.

By the way, if you sent in a request, but that pothole isn’t filled just yet, rest assured that our crews are still working hard to fill the thousands of requests we received for Pothole Palooza.

Seattle is kicking off Pothole Palooza on Monday, April 17, a campaign to aggressively repair potholes across the city. Beginning today, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is asking community members to report neighborhood potholes so we can map them out as our Pothole Rangers move throughout the city.

During the campaign, SDOT crews will be assigned to specific districts around the city. SDOT Crews will be joined by crews from Seattle Parks and Recreation who will assist with these efforts.

Potholes occur when street pavement cracks and breaks because of water and vehicle traffic. During winter months, water can cause the material under the pavement to erode, freeze and expand, and then thaw and contract causing the pavement to sink down and break. Many streets, particularly in the outer areas of the city, have a very poor underlying structure, or sub base, which reacts poorly to these conditions. This freeze/thaw cycle can cause the pavement to crack so that it deteriorates quickly under the weight of traffic, and then streets can seem to break out in potholes overnight.

Seattle has had an extremely wet and cold 2016-2017 winter season. Residents typically see more potholes in the winter and spring, following periods of cold temperatures and rain or snow. February and March are when we see the highest numbers of potholes. This past February was the wettest we have experienced in thirty years. For more information about potholes, please visit: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/potholes/.

Seattle wouldn’t be the Emerald City without all the beautiful trees that line our streets. Street trees provide shade and habitat, soften busy urban sidewalks, simply make our streets nicer places to spend time, and so much more.

So, who maintains the 40,000 “SDOT trees” spread along Seattle’s 1,675 linear miles of streets? SDOT’s team of nine arborists and a supervisor do this.

Seattle has about 250,000 street trees (all trees growing within public places are considered to be street trees; excluding trees in private yards, parks, etc.) that’s about a quarter of a million trees that need to be maintained.

Adjacent property owners are responsible for maintaining most of these street trees (when a street tree is planted, the property owner and the city agree who will maintain it), and SDOT maintains about 40,000 of them. Keep in mind that “SDOT trees” are more likely to be planted along busy arterials than on quiet neighborhood streets, so our arborists often work in very challenging environments.

Along busy Aurora Avenue N

Removing trees after a landslide on Highland Park Way SW.

SDOT arborists keep our street trees healthy, attractive, safe, and valuable. They prune about 5,000 trees per year so they’re not blocking people walking on sidewalks or vehicles driving down the street. They also deal with safety issues of street trees such as by assessing and removing the unstable ones.

Our team of arborists has special training so they can scale tall trees by climbing (sometimes more than 100 feet high) or by using aerial lifts and other heavy equipment. They also use traffic control skills on our busy streets and coordinate with agencies whose electric lines and trolley wires intermingle with tree branches. Most of the team are ISA Certified Arborists and hold Tree Risk Assessor qualifications. And of course, safety is always a top priority for the team.

SDOT arborists also provide emergency response 24/7 after a storm, car crash or a landslide, where they remove fallen or unstable trees, or branches from the scene.

On January 11, 2017, Portland was hit with a massive snowstorm, making national headlines. So we sent crews to help out the Portland Bureau of Transportation. It was hard work, but our crews say they’ll never forget the trip to help our friends to the south.

Our Maintenance Operations Division sent more than a dozen crew members and several pieces of equipment.

Over two days, our crews helped to clear ice and snow from roadways, as well as fallen trees, some of which landed on top of cars, throughout the entire city of Portland.

Our crew takes a break on the way home from Portland.

When our crews came back home to Seattle, they received this thank you letter from the City of Portland to the City of Seattle.

We are happy to have assisted the City of Portland and its residents and we look forward to our continued collaboration throughout all weather conditions.

Our crews prepare for wintry weather all year round. Check out our Winter Weather page to see our readiness plan, tips on preparing for cold weather, and the always useful winter weather map.